Oystercatcher Migration: the Dad Effect

What determines whether some birds migrate and others do not? This question is fundamental to understanding how migratory systems change over time but the causes of individual migratory behaviours have proved difficult to isolate.

Verónica Méndez and colleagues are studying Icelandic Oystercatchers, some of which remain in Iceland for the winter but most of which migrate across the Atlantic to Ireland, Britain and mainland Europe. In a 2021 paper in Scientific Reports they show that a chick’s migratory behaviour seems to align with the behaviour of its father but not its mother. What can explain this pattern?

The story so far

The Icelandic Oystercatcher study system has already featured in three WaderTales blogs. The first was Migratory decisions for Icelandic Oystercatchers. This focused upon the key questions that Verónica Méndez and colleagues from the universities of Iceland, East Anglia (UK) and Aveiro (Portugal) are trying to answer.

• Why do some Oystercatchers migrate when others don’t?
• Is it the same birds each year?
• Do resident or migrant birds have an advantage when it comes to choosing a territory and raising chicks?
• Do chicks follow the same migratory patterns as their parents?

When the first blog was written, in 2015, eight colour-ringed Oystercatchers had been seen in Ireland and the UK, and five had been seen wintering in Iceland. Fast forward to the next blog in 2018 – Mission impossible? Counting Iceland’s wintering Oystercatchers – where counts showed that over 11,000 Oystercatchers spend the winter in Iceland. Using colour-ring sightings of resident and migratory birds, the research team concluded that this total is about 30% of the whole Icelandic population. The other 70% fly south across the Atlantic each autumn, with no individuals yet observed to change what they do between years.

In the third blog – Which Icelandic Oystercatchers cross the Atlantic? – some patterns were starting to emerge.

• Females and males are equally likely to migrate.
• Size does not matter – small and big birds are equally likely to migrate
• There are regional patterns across Iceland, with birds breeding in the west being most likely to be resident.
• Birds do not pair up assortatively – residents don’t pair up with other residents before the migrants return, for instance.

Family ties

In most species of waders, parents protect their chicks and take them to suitable feeding areas but they do not actively feed them. Parental care in European Oystercatcher includes foraging for food and bringing it back to the chicks. This is why it is possible for Oystercatchers to nest on the roofs of buildings (Oystercatchers: from shingle beach to roof-top), where they are out of the reach of ground predators.

Focusing on chicks

To be able to understand the relationship between migratory behaviour in adults and their chicks, you need to be able to mark and then attempt to follow all of the members of a family. Adult Oystercatchers generally keep the same mates and nest in the same areas year after year, enabling the establishment of marked population of birds in different parts of Iceland. Between 2015 and 2018, a total of 615 incubating adults were caught. By following the outcomes of nesting attempts and then monitoring the growth of chicks, the research team also managed to individually mark 377 chicks.

Three colour-ringed chicks. Where will they go?

The success of the whole project relied heavily upon winter sightings of marked birds within Iceland and in Ireland, the UK and continental Europe. Through a network of volunteer observers reporting sightings of marked individuals across the wintering range, the migratory behaviours of 227 of the 615 colour-marked adults and 50 of the 377 colour-marked chicks had been identified at the time that this paper was written. In addition, it was possible to infer the migratory behaviour of 353 marked adults using measurement of isotope ratios (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) of feathers that were grown in the winter (as described here).

The analyses in the paper by Verónica Méndez and her colleagues are based upon 42 marked chicks of parents for which the migratory behaviour of both parents is either known or can be inferred from isotopic signatures. These chicks all fledged successfully and were seen during the winter period, either in Iceland or having crossed the Atlantic. In three cases, two chicks from the same broods are known to have behaved in the same way. More data have become available since the analyses, all confirming the same patterns.

Results

It is possible to imagine a scenario in which late or slow-growing Oystercatcher chicks might be more likely to stay in Iceland than their more mature counterparts – simply by developing too late to gain enough resources to cross the Atlantic. Analysis of hatch dates and growth parameters did not suggest the existence of such a link, as described in the paper.

This young Oystercatcher was spending its first winter on the coast of western Iceland

The interesting finding of this study is the link between the behaviour of parents and chicks. Data generated by observations of colour ringed individuals (adult and chicks) and from isotopes (adults) established 21 chick/parent associations.

• Of the sixteen chicks raised by migrant mothers, eight migrated and eight remained in Iceland.
• Of the five chicks raised by resident mothers, three migrated and two remained in Iceland.
• All ten of the chicks raised by migrant fathers migrated from Iceland.
• Of the eleven chicks raised by resident fathers, one migrated and ten remained in Iceland.
• Seven chicks that fledged from pairs with one resident and one migrant parent adopted the migratory behaviour of the father.

This is pretty compelling evidence that chick migratory behaviour is associated with paternal (and not maternal) migratory behaviour!

What does this mean?

There is no evidence of genetic control of migratory destinations and both Oystercatcher parents care for chicks, so what mechanism could produce such strong paternal but not maternal effects?

The authors suggest that the migratory behaviour of individual oystercatchers may be linked to social interactions they experience during the post-fledging period. In shorebird species, such as Oystercatchers, mothers commonly depart before the chicks fledge, or at about the same time. Fathers often provide parental care for longer and this extended period of the parental bond may underlie the link between paternal and juvenile migratory behaviour in Icelandic Oystercatchers. Despite being able to fly and feed independently, juvenile Oystercatchers in Iceland have been seen begging for food several months after fledging, suggesting that some parents (most likely fathers) may care for youngsters much longer than in other species.

This Iceland-ringed Oysterctatcher was photographed in Guernsey in January 2021. It departs at the start of February each year.

Under this extended-care system, a chick that is being look after by a resident male may well become a resident, simply by following dad. As autumn arrives, the youngster can follow his parent when he moves to the coastal mudflats where resident Icelandic Oystercatchers spend the non-breeding season. Autumn turns to winter and the chick is destined to be a resident.

Is it possible to explain a similar link for migrants? As the breeding season comes to an end, migrant fathers leave their breeding areas and head south, across the Atlantic, leaving fledged youngsters to fend for themselves. Groups of youngsters gather together in flocks which also include adults that are feeding up in preparation for migration. Although not influenced by their own fathers, chicks may follow the cues of other migratory adults, thereby creating the patterns seen in this paper.

Most of the chicks included in these analyses were early-fledged birds, simply because earlier nesting attempts tend to be more successful. The research team were unable to detect any significant effect of fledging date on migratory behaviour but they do not rule out the possibility that late-fledging individuals lack the time or resources to undertake a migratory journey, irrespective of paternal behaviour.

The broader context

Migratory behaviour typically arises in seasonal environments, allowing individuals to exploit peaks of resource abundance in distinct locations across the world. Rapid shifts in the distribution and migration phenology of many migratory species present challenges to site-based conservation strategies. There is an urgent need to understand the processes that influence individual migratory behaviour, in order to attempt to predict species’ responses to environmental change.

The findings in this paper suggest that the social interactions experienced by individuals can directly influence the development of their migratory behaviour, and that the extent and timing of parental care may be key in shaping individual access to these social interactions. You can read the full paper here:

Paternal effects in the initiation of migratory behaviour in birds Méndez V., Gill, J.A., Þórisson, B., Vignisson, S.R., Gunnarsson, T.G. & Alves J.A.

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WaderTales blogs are written by Graham Appleton (@GrahamFAppleton) to celebrate waders and wader research. Many of the articles are based on published papers, with the aim of making shorebird science available to a broader audience.